Chapter Text
Loneliness was a curious thing. Like a being with its own life, a constant companion that pressed and clawed and devoured him from within. Sometimes he could fight back, push its presence to a far corner of his mind, ignore the hollow ache for a time. But he could always count on it to return to his side when the silence came.
Cardan curled his tail closer to him, flicking it up to rub its soft fur between his fingers as he stared up at the ceiling.
Since he had moved here, it felt as though the empty presence of loneliness had become his constant companion. He dreaded the ending of each night, dreaded the inevitable, oppressive silence that accompanied the rising sun as the courtiers retired to their rooms and he to wherever his mind decided to take him in their absence.
Twisting in bed to face the large, root-bordered door of his father’s chambers—because they weren’t his, not really—Cardan imagined the doors opening, imagined… someone, anyone, walking through. It didn’t matter who, he told himself—although he certainly had a preference.
He shook his head, curling his lip at the implications of his own fantasies. Ridiculous. He felt the slightest bit lonely and suddenly he was dreaming about her. As though she'd fix it. As though she cared.
He refused to think her name, though her face already filled his mind. Beautiful in its human flaws. Perfect in its imperfections.
He wished things had been different. He wished he had been born someone else. Wished she’d never come to Faerie. Wished she would come to him now.
Cardan rolled over abruptly, his legs tangling in the sheets as he hastened to put his back to the door.
It was revolting—he was revolting, pining after a human girl like this. He hated her. Despised her very existence. The way she was constantly in his mind, plaguing his thoughts—how her brows drew together ever so slightly when she schemed; the way she rubbed the shortened joint of her missing finger when she got nervous; the flash in her eyes when he said something particularly irksome. What would she think if she saw him now? Tired and restless and utterly alone?
He didn’t want to be left by himself anymore. Didn't want to keep fighting the shadows on his own, night after lonely night.
The silence was too deep alone, its burden too heavy to bear. He was slowly becoming crushed under its weight, like a mountain had crumbled on top of him. Like its pressure was forcing the air from his lungs.
The tip of his tail twitched as a sour taste rose in the back of his throat. How small a figure he was, really. The High King of Elfhame, with power over the land itself, who could cause the earth to tremble and call islands from the sea—and yet he couldn’t face a little bit of silence.
Couldn’t stop his heart from aching at the thought of a human girl.
He tried to close his eyes, but loneliness called. It didn’t want him to sleep—and who was he to deny the monster?
So he lay, staring sightlessly at the foliage-covered walls of this foreign room, as the pit that should have been his heart swallowed him up from the inside out.
He deserved it. He deserved it, he deserved it, he deserved it.
He was a terrible creation, truly. The product of a mother who didn’t want him and a father who only ever looked at him with disdain. Of a brother who could not have cared less what happened to him, so long as he didn’t get in the way, and sisters who turned a blind eye to his torment.
The memories were floating around the edges of his conscious mind, knocking against the barriers he’d erected to keep them out.
They seeped in.
Endless nights curled up in bed, a victim of the dark. Days spent thinking, planning a way to make his parents happy. Changing himself from the inside out, trying to prove that he was better than his father believed. Selling his soul just to see his mother smile.
More memories followed. No matter how hard he tried to keep them out his mind resisted, dragging up every moment, every reason that had led him on to this battlefield, playing them on loop.
Human girls who stuck together, who held hands as they walked home through the Milkweeds. Who went home to a house in which they were safe, to people who didn’t beat them or threaten to cut their tails off if they didn't learn their place. Perhaps it wasn’t love, but it was better than pure disdain.
No one had ever paid attention to Eldred’s youngest son unless it was to gift him a prettily packaged insult or scourge him into submission.
They certainly hadn’t believed him to be capable of anything great. So instead, he’d become horrible. He’d drowned the fear in his golden chalices and distracted himself with what fun he could have with the courtiers who flocked to him.
The truth of their flocking was not lost on him; he wasn’t a fool, though he certainly played the part. They didn’t like him any more than his blood relatives did, so when they suddenly started seeking him out, he’d known what they’d truly been after. Known it wasn’t his company.
Everything in Faerie spun around a central power and the closer to that power you could get, the higher you could climb.
He was nothing but a stepping stone to them.
Cardan wanted to sneer at the thought, wanted to be disgusted and angered with them all—but instead all he felt was pain. Like a knife buried in his heart, an aching, burning pain accompanied by the one truth that he knew but had never admitted: he was nothing. And the only thing that made him anything to anyone was the crown that Jude had put atop his head.
Despicable, vile, human Jude. Liar. A liar. She was a liar, and with one act, she’d caught all of Faerie up in her lies, too.
Each time someone called him Majesty, each time someone bowed low before his throne or swore their loyalty to him, he felt it. He felt the lie that radiated—from them, and also from him, because he was just as much a liar as all the rest of them. Perhaps more. He was the deceitful, powerless prince masquerading as the king of a truthless, power-hungry people. They’d find out soon enough that he didn’t have what they wanted, and then they’d tear the too-big crown from his head and drag him from the throne where he sat to play pretend.
Cardan ground his teeth, donning a robe and slippers as he marched to his door. Throwing it open, he came face to face with a pair of startled guards, their spears pointed at his chest.
“My king!” one exclaimed, hastily lowering his weapon. “I’m sorry, forgive us, we—”
Cardan’s only response was to shove through them. The guards’ footsteps clattered behind him as they scrambled to keep pace, their voices muffled in his ears, as though he were hearing them through a layer of deep water.
“Leave me,” he ordered over his shoulder, not breaking stride.
"But—" one of the guards objected, and Cardan came to a sudden halt, rounding on her.
"I said, leave me," he snapped. “Return to your post, I don’t want you here.”
“Your majesty—”
“Don’t call me that!” He sounded desperate, his voice just a little too shrill, too sharp around the edges. He was shaking, his hands fisted and his jaw clenched, his dark hair messy.
“My—my liege,” the taller one stammered, hesitating on the words, “our orders are to protect you at all costs. Your seneschal—”
“Well, now you have new orders.” When neither guard moved to leave, Cardan practically snarled, “Go!” and flung his arm back in the direction of the royal chambers. They scurried away, casting nervous glances over their shoulders.
He waited for them to disappear around the corner before continuing, using the servants’ halls to avoid any courtiers who may be up at this time. He stopped when he reached the room he wanted.
The dark wood door was smooth and he studied the swirling, polished grains as he wondered what in hell he was doing. He stared at his trembling hand, hovering inches above it. What was inside would help him, he tried to reason. Distract him, at the very least. Either way, he’d feel better than he did now. Empty. Alone.
Even if the comforts she might whisper would be false.
Cardan stood there for a long time, hand poised to knock, heart aching.
He hated her lies. He couldn’t get enough of them.
He imagined how one word from her would banish the loneliness that hovered with him constantly. How she could slay the monsters his mind conjured, just by being near him. Even if she didn’t know she did it.
He just had to knock.
Knock, damn you! He drew his hand back, curled his fingers, fighting whatever it was inside him that didn't want him to see her. Whatever it was that did want to see her.
But he couldn’t do it.
He rested his slackened fist against the door, touching his forehead to it as well.
Weak, weak, weak. Helpless little boy, puppet prince playing king. Pretending to have power.
His eyelids drooped and he let them, let the darkness obscure his vision, let the shadows smother him.
He didn't know how long he stood there, hand on her door as though he could feel her presence through it. Didn't really know why he stayed so long, waiting for a salvation that wasn't for him, who didn't want him, eyes shut tight against the real world.
This was useless. He straightened, pushed the hair back from his face, took a deep breath.
Cardan turned away to face the monsters.
Alone.